Willie Nelson statue and boulevard planned for Austin

Published 5:30 am, Friday, May 7, 2010

AUSTIN — Country music great Willie Nelson is being honored in Austin with plans for a guitar-in-hand bronze statue and a street named in his honor.

The city council on May 27 is scheduled to vote on dubbing a stretch of 2nd Street “Willie Nelson Boulevard.”

A smaller version of a planned Nelson statue was unveiled Thursday.

The larger version is scheduled to be placed next year near the entrance the new studio of the famed public broadcasting music program Austin City Limits. Nelson was featured in the 1974 pilot episode.

The nonprofit group Capital Area Statues Inc. commissioned the Nelson sculpture by Philadelphia artist Clete Shields, as part of a continuing salute to Texas history and culture.

The 77-year-old Nelson is from Abbott, located 25 miles north of Waco.

A statue of Texas music legend Stevie Ray Vaughan has graced the shore of Austin's Lady Bird Lake for years.

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